- 814
AN ILLUSTRATION TO A RAGAMALA SERIES: SRI RAGA
Estimate
3,000 - 5,000 USD
bidding is closed
Description
- AN ILLUSTRATION TO A RAGAMALA SERIES: SRI RAGA
- Opaque watercolor heightened with gold on paper
- image: 8 3/8 by 5 1/8 in. (21.3 by 13 cm)
- folio: 10 1/2 by 6 7/8 in. (26.7 by 17.5 cm) unframed
Literature
Alice Heeramaneck, Masterpieces of Indian Painting, Verona, 1984 pl. 57, p. 65
Catalogue Note
A lord, holding a vina and seated on a gold throne under a brilliant vermilion-red canopy or parasol, listens to a musician perform Sri Raga at sunset. The music somber, conveying a mood of majesty, contemplation and meditation. An attendant waves a chowrie (flywhisk) as a symbol of royal authority.
A vibrant miniature perhaps attributable to the atelier of Sheikh Taju - a Kotah master with a prolific studio. A characteristic of miniatures from this workshop are the distinctive sharply profiled facial types with beak-like noses and heavy-lidded eyes based upon depictions of Maharao Arjun Singh (d. 1723) perhaps the most distinctive face in 18th♍ Century Kota painting.
Refer to S.C. Welch, Gods, Kings and Tigers : The Art of Kotah, New York, 1997, pp. 47, fig. 9 and Klaus Ebeling, Ragamala Painting, Basel, 1973, cat. 179, p. 239.